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Sunday, July 10, 2016

Camper Van Beethoven: Take the Skinheads Bowling

Why was Take the Skinheads Bowlilng a hit?

Don't ask David Lowery who founded Camper Van Beethoven and wrote the song:

I never thought that Take the Skinheads Bowling would become a Hit. If someone had traveled from the future and told me we would have a hit on our first album I would not have picked this song as being the hit. Not in a million years. I would have more likely picked Where the Hell is Bill.

Why? We regarded Take The Skinheads Bowling as just a weird non-sensical song. The lyrics were purposely structured so that it would be devoid of meaning. Each subsequent line would undermine any sort of meaning established by the last line. It was the early 80′s and all our peers were writing songs that were full of meaning. It was our way of rebelling.

BTW this is the most important fact about this song. We wanted the words to lack any coherent meaning. There is no story or deeper insight that I can give you about this song.

David Immerglück from Camper Van Beethoven went on to be the guitartist with Counting Crows.